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WASHINGTON, July 4: Iraqi militias, including those loyal to the firebrand Shia scholar Moqtada al-Sadr must lay down their weapons, Iraq's interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said on US television on Sunday.
"The position of the government is very clear. There is no room for any militias to operate in Iraq," Mr Allawi said on ABC's "This Week" programme. "Everybody should follow the bounds of the law, whether it's Moqtada al-Sadr or anybody else."
Mr Allawi said he met on Saturday with a delegation trying to mediate between the government and Sadr, who has urged Iraqis to oppose the continued presence of around 160,000 mainly US foreign troops in Iraq.
Sadr has indicated his militia would disarm if they were offered amnesty and that was possible, Mr Allawi said. Sadr also wants "to be part of the political process," he said. "Anybody who respects the rule of law and the human rights is welcome to be part of Iraq."
The interim prime minister listed internal security as the top goal of the caretaker Iraqi government, but said other priorities were restoring public services, reducing unemployment and holding elections for a permanent government by January 2005.
FOREIGN GOVTS BLAMED: Meanwhile, Iraq's Foreign Minister, Hoshiyar Zebari has criticized nearby countries for backing extremists and supporters of the old Baghdad regime who have launched a rebellion since the fall of Saddam Hussein.
Mr Zebari told Britain's The Sunday Telegraph newspaper that foreign governments were supporting "terrorists" and promised his government would produce evidence of this in the coming days.
"Since we started to look at the security situation, we have seen how foreign governments have been helping terrorists. Why they are doing it we cannot say, but we know where the support is coming from," he said. -Reuters
